Farmers from the towns around Boston were already in the market-place around Faneuil Hall the next morning when Robert drove down from the Green Dragon.[11] Those who had quarters of beef and lamb for sale were cutting the meat upon heavy oaken tables. Fishermen were bringing baskets filled with mackerel and cod from their boats moored in the dock. An old man was pushing a wheelbarrow before him filled with lobsters. Housewives followed by negro servants were purchasing meats and vegetables, holding eggs to the light to see if they were fresh, tasting pats of butter, handling chickens, and haggling with the farmers about the prices of what they had to sell.

The town-crier was jingling his bell and shouting that Thomas Russell at the auction room on Queen Street would sell a great variety of plain and spotted, lilac, scarlet, strawberry-colored, and yellow paduasoys, bellandine silks, sateens, galloons, ferrets, grograms, and harratines at half past ten o’clock.

Robert tied Jenny to the hitching-rail, and walked amid the hucksters to see what they had to sell; by observation he could ascertain the state of the market, and govern himself accordingly. After interviewing the hucksters he entered a store.

“No, I don’t want any cheese,” said the first on whom he called.

“The market is glutted,” replied the second.

“If it were a little later in the season I would talk with you,” was the answer of the third.

“I’ve got more on hand now than I know what to do with,” said the fourth.

Robert began to think he might have to take them back to Rumford. He saw a sign, “John Hancock, Successor to Thomas Hancock,” and remembered that his father had traded there, and that John Hancock was associated with Sam Adams and Doctor Warren in resisting the aggressions of the king’s ministers. Mr. Hancock was not in the store, but would soon be there. The clerk said he would look at what Robert had to sell, put on his hat, stepped to the wagon, stood upon the thills, held a cheese to his nose, pressed it with his thumb, tapped it with a gimlet, tasted it, and smacked his lips.

“Your mother makes good cheese,” he said.

“My sister made them.”

“Your sister, eh. Older than yourself?”

“No, younger; only seventeen.”

“Indeed! Well, you may tell her she is a dabster at cheese-making. Do you want cash? If you do I’m afeard we shall not be able to trade, because cash is cash these days; but if you are willing to barter I guess we can dicker, for Mr. Hancock is going to freight a ship to the West Indias and wants something to send in her, and it strikes me the sugar planters at Porto Rico might like a bit of cheese,” the clerk said.

“I shall want some sugar, coffee, molasses, codfish, and other things.”

“I’ll give you the market price for all your cheeses, and make fair rates on what you want from us.”

“I can’t let you have all. I must reserve two of the best.”

“May I ask why you withhold two?”

“Because my father wishes to present one to Mr. Samuel Adams and the other to Doctor Joseph Warren, who are doing so much to preserve the rights of the Colonies.”

“Your father’s name is”—

“Joshua Walden,” said Robert.

“Oh yes, I remember him well. He was down here last winter and I bought his load. He had a barrel of apple-sauce, and Mr. Hancock liked it so well he took it for his own table. There is Mr. Hancock, now,” said the clerk, as a chaise drove up and halted before the door.

Robert saw a tall young man, wearing a saffron colored velvet coat, ruffled shirt, buff satin breeches, black silk stockings, and shining shoe-buckles, step in a dignified manner from the chaise and hand the reins to a gray-headed negro, who lifted his hat as he took them.

“Good-morning, Mr. Ledger,” he said to the clerk.

“Good-morning,” the clerk replied, lifting his hat.

“Well, how is the Mary Jane getting on? Have you found anything in the market on which we can turn a penny? I want to get her off as soon as possible.”

“I was just having a talk with this young gentleman about his cheeses. This is Mr. Walden from Rumford. You perhaps may remember his father, with whom we traded last year.”

“Oh yes, I remember Mr. Joshua Walden. I hope your father is well. I have not forgotten his earnestness in all matters relating to the welfare of the Colonies. Nor have I forgotten that barrel of apple-sauce he brought to market, and I want to make a bargain for another barrel just like it. All my guests pronounced it superb. Step into the store, Mr. Walden, and, Mr. Ledger, a bottle of madeira, if you please.”

The clerk stepped down cellar and returned with a bottle of wine, took from a cupboard a salver and glasses and filled them.

“Shall we have the pleasure of drinking the health of your father?” said Mr. Hancock, courteously touching his glass to Robert’s. “Please give him my compliments and say to him that we expect New Hampshire to stand shoulder to shoulder with Massachusetts in the cause of liberty.”

Mr. Hancock drank his wine slowly. Robert saw that he stood erect, and remembered he was captain of a military company—the Cadets.

“Will you allow me to take a glass with you for your own health?” he said, refilling the glasses and bowing with dignity and again slowly drinking.

“Mr. Ledger, you will please do what you can to accommodate Mr. Walden in the way of trade. You are right in thinking the planters of Jamaica will like some cheese from our New England dairies, and you may as well unload them at the dock; it will save rehandling them. We must have Mary Jane scudding away as soon as possible.”

Mr. Hancock bowed once more and sat down to his writing-desk.

Robert drove his wagon alongside the ship and unloaded the cheeses, then called at the stores around Faneuil Hall to find a market for the yarn and cloth and his wool. Few were ready to pay him money, but at last all was sold.

“Can you direct me to the house of Mr. Samuel Adams?” he asked of the town crier.

“Oh yes, you go through Mackerel Lane[12] to Cow Lane and through that to Purchase Street, and you will see an orchard with apple and pear trees and a big house with stairs outside leading up to a platform on the roof; that’s the house. Do you know Sam?”

“No, I never have seen Mr. Adams.”

“Well, if you run across a tall, good-looking man between forty-five and fifty, with blue eyes, who wears a red cloak and cocked hat, and who looks as if he wasn’t afeard of the king, the devil, or any of his imps, that is Maltster Sam. We call him Maltster Sam because he once made malt for a living, but didn’t live by it because it didn’t pay. He’s a master hand in town meetings. He made it red-hot for Bernard, and he’ll make it hotter for Sammy Hutchinson if he don’t mind his p’s and q’s. Sam is a buster, now, I tell you.”

Robert drove through Cow Lane and came to the house. He rapped at the front door, which was opened by a tall man, with a pleasant but resolute countenance, whose clothes were plain and getting threadbare. His hair was beginning to be gray about the temples, and he wore a gray tie wig.

“This is Mr. Adams, is it not?” Robert asked.

“That is my name; what can I do for you?”

“I am Robert Walden from Rumford. I think you know my father.”

“Yes, indeed. Please walk in. Son of my friend Joshua Walden? I am glad to see you,” said Mr. Adams with a hearty shake of the hand.

“I have brought you a cheese which my father wishes you to accept with his compliments.”

“That is just like him; he always brings us something. Please say to him that Mrs. Adams and myself greatly appreciate his kind remembrance of us.”

A tall lady with a comely countenance was descending the hall stairs.

“Wife, this is Mr. Walden, son of our old friend; just see what he has brought us.”

Robert lifted his hat and was recognized by a gracious courtesy.

“How good everybody is to us. The ravens fed Elijah, but I don’t believe they brought cheese to him. We shall be reminded of your kindness every time we sit down to a meal,” said Mrs. Adams.

Robert thought he never had seen a smile more gracious than that upon her pale, careworn countenance.[13] He noticed that everything about the room was plain, but neat and tidy. Upon a shelf were the Bible, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and a volume of Reverend Mr. South’s sermons. Robert remembered his father said Mrs. Adams was the daughter of Reverend Mr. Checkley, minister of the New South Meetinghouse, and that Mr. Adams went to meeting there. Upon the table were law books, pamphlets, papers, letters, and newspapers. He saw that some of the letters bore the London postmark. He remembered his father said Mr. Adams had not much money; that he was so dead in earnest in maintaining the rights of the people he had little time to attend to his own affairs.

“Will you be in town through the week and over the Sabbath?” Mr. Adams asked.

Robert replied that he intended to visit his relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon, on Copp’s Hill.

“Oh yes, my friend the shipbuilder—a very worthy gentleman, and his wife an estimable lady. They have an energetic and noble daughter and a promising son. I have an engagement to-night, another to-morrow, but shall be at home to-morrow evening, and I would like to have you and your young friends take supper with us. I will tell you something that your father would like to know.”

Robert thanked him, and took his departure. Thinking that Doctor Warren probably would be visiting his patients at that hour of the day, he drove to the Green Dragon, and put Jenny in her stall, and after dinner made his way to the goldsmith’s shop to find a present for Rachel.

Mr. Paul Revere, who had gold beads, brooches, silver spoons, shoe and knee buckles, clocks, and a great variety of articles for sale, was sitting on a bench engraving a copper plate. He laid down his graving-tool and came to the counter. Robert saw he had a benevolent face; that he was hale and hearty.

“I would like to look at what you have that is pretty for a girl of eighteen,” said Robert.

Mr. Revere smiled as if he understood that the young man before him wanted something that would delight his sweetheart.

“I want it for my sister,” Robert added.

Mr. Revere smiled again as he took a bag filled with gold beads from the showcase.

“I think you cannot find anything prettier for your sister than a string of beads,” he said. “Women and girls like them better than anything else. They are always in fashion. You will not make any mistake, I am sure, in selecting them.”

He held up several strings to the light, that Robert might see how beautiful they were.

“I would like to look at your brooches.”

While the goldsmith was taking them from the showcase, he glanced at the pictures on the walls, printed from plates which Mr. Revere had engraved.

The brooches were beautiful—ruby, onyx, sapphire, emerald, but after examining them he turned once more to the beads.

“They are eighteen carats fine, and will not grow dim with use. I think your sister will be delighted with them.”

Robert thought so too, and felt a glow of pleasure when they were packed in soft paper and transferred from the case to his pocket.

With the afternoon before him he strolled the streets, looking at articles in the shop windows, at the clock on the Old Brick Meetinghouse, the barracks of the soldiers,—the king’s Twenty-Ninth Regiment.[14] Some of the redcoats were polishing their gun barrels and bayonets, others smoking their pipes. Beyond the barracks a little distance he saw Mr. Gray’s ropewalk. He turned through Mackerel Lane and came to the Bunch of Grapes Tavern,[15] and just beyond it the Admiral Vernon. He strolled to Long Wharf. The king’s warship, Romney, was riding at anchor near by, and a stately merchant ship was coming up the harbor. The fragrance of the sea was in the air. Upon the wharf were hogsheads of molasses unloaded from a vessel just arrived from Jamaica. Boys had knocked out a bung and were running a stick into the hole and lapping the molasses. The sailors lounging on the wharf were speaking a language he could not understand. For the first time in his life he was in touch, as it were, with the great world beyond the sea.

During the day he had met several of the king’s soldiers, swaggering along the streets as if privileged to do as they pleased, regardless of the people. Two, whom he had seen drinking toddy in the Admiral Vernon, swayed against him.

“Hello, clodhopper! How’s yer dad and marm?” said one.

Robert felt the hot blood mount to his brow.

“Say, bumpkin, how did ye get away from your ma’s apron-string?” said the other.

“He hasn’t got the pluck of a goslin,” said the first.

Robert set his teeth together, but made no reply, and walked away. He felt like pitching them headforemost into the dock, and was fearful he might do something which, in cooler blood, he would wish he had not done.

By what right were they strolling the streets of an orderly town? Those who supported the king said they were there to maintain the dignity of the crown. True, a mob had battered the door of Thomas Hutchinson, but that had been settled. The people were quiet, orderly, law-abiding. The sentinel by the Town House glared at him as he walked up King Street, as if ready to dispute his right to do so. He saw a bookstore on the corner of the street, and with a light heart entered it. A tall, broad-shouldered young man welcomed him.

“May I look at your books?” Robert asked.

“Certainly; we have all those recently published in London, and a great many pamphlets printed here in the Colonies,” the young man replied.

“I live in the country. We do not have many books in New Hampshire,” said Robert.

“Oh, from New Hampshire? Please make yourself at home, and look at any book you please. My name is Henry Knox,”[16] said the young man.

“I am Robert Walden.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Walden, and shall be glad to render you any service in my power. Is this your first visit to town?”

Robert said it was. He could only gaze in wonder at the books upon the shelves. He had not thought there could be so many in the world. Mr. Knox saw the growing look of astonishment.

“What can I show you? Perhaps you do not care for sermons. We have a good many; ministers like to see their sermons in print. I think perhaps you will like this better,” said Mr. Knox, taking down a copy of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. “You will find it very interesting; just sit down and look at it.”

Robert seated himself in a chair and read the story of the Forty Thieves.

“Do you think these are true stories?” he asked when he had finished it.

Mr. Knox replied they were true in so far as they described the manners and customs of the people of Arabia and Persia. He did not doubt the stories had been told in Babylon, Nineveh, and Damascus, and he might think of the people in those cities sitting in the calm evenings under the almond-trees on the banks of the Euphrates or the river Abana listening to the story-teller, who probably did his best to make the story entertaining.

“Doubtless,” said Mr. Knox, “we think it would not be possible for things to happen as they are narrated, but I am not quite sure about that. One of the stories, for instance, tells how a man went through the air on a carpet. We think it cannot be true, but here is a pamphlet which tells how Henry Cavendish, in England, a little while ago discovered a gas which he calls hydrogen. It is ten times lighter than air—so light that another gentleman, Mr. Black, filled a bag with it which took him off his feet and carried him round the room, to the astonishment of all who beheld it. I shouldn’t be surprised if by and by we shall be able to travel through the air by a bag filled with such gas.”

Robert listened with intense interest, not being able to comprehend how anything could be lighter than air. He was not quite sure that his father and mother would approve of his reading a book that was not strictly true, and he was sure that the good minister and deacons of the church would shake their heads solemnly were they to know it; but he could read it on his way home and hide it in the haymow and read it on rainy days in the barn. But that would not be manly. No, he could not do that. He would tell his father and mother and Rachel about it, and read it to them by the kitchen fire. Hit or miss, he would purchase the book.

Mr. Knox kindly offered to show him the Town House. They crossed the street, and entered the council chamber. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and the members of the council were sitting in their armchairs, wearing white wigs and scarlet cloaks. Their gold-laced hats were lying on their desks. Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, commanding the king’s troops, was seated by the side of Governor Hutchinson as a visitor. Upon the walls were portraits of Kings Charles II. and James II. in gilded frames; also portraits of Governors Winthrop, Endicott, and Bradstreet.

Thanking Mr. Knox for his kindness, Robert passed into the street, took a look at the stocks and pillory, and wondered if that was the best way to punish those who had committed petty offenses.

He saw a girl tripping along the street. A young lieutenant in command of the sentinels around the Town House stared rudely at her. In contrast to the leering look of the officer, the negro servants filling their pails at the pump were very respectful in giving her room to pass. He saw the two soldiers who had attempted to pick a quarrel with him on the wharf, emerge from an alley. One chucked the young lady under the chin: the other threw his arm around her and attempted to steal a kiss. Robert heard a wild cry, and saw her struggle to be free. With a bound he was by her side. His right arm swung through the air, and his clenched fist came down like a sledge-hammer upon the head of the ruffian, felling him to the earth. The next moment the other was picked up and plunged headforemost into the watering-trough. No word had been spoken. The girl, as if not comprehending what had happened, stood amazed before him.

“Thank you, sir; I never shall forget your kindness,” she said, dropping a low courtesy and walking rapidly up Queen Street.

Never before had he seen a face like hers, a countenance that would not fade from memory, although he saw it but a moment.

Suddenly he found himself confronted by the lieutenant, who came running from the Town House, with flashing eyes and drawn sword. Robert did not run, but looked him squarely in the face.

“What do you mean, you”—

The remainder of the sentence is not recorded: the printed page is cleaner without it.

“I meant to teach the villains not to insult a lady.”

“I’ve a good mind to split your skull open,” said the lieutenant, white with rage, but not knowing what to make of a man so calm and resolute.

“Let me get at him! Let me get at him! I’ll knock the daylight out of him,” shouted the fellow whom Robert had felled to the ground, but who had risen and stood with clenched fists. The other, the while, was clambering from the trough, wiping the water from his face and ready to rush upon Robert, angered all the more by the jeers of the grinning negroes.

“What is all this about?”

It was Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple speaking. He had seen the commotion from the window of the council chamber, and hastened to the scene. “Put up your sword,” he said to the lieutenant.

“What have you been doing, sir?” he asked, turning sternly to Robert.

“Suppose you first ask those two fellows what they’ve been doing? Nevertheless, Colonel, lest you might not get a true answer, allow me to say that they insulted a lady, that I knocked one down and tossed the other into the watering-trough, to teach them better manners. For doing it your lieutenant has seen fit to draw his sword and threaten to split my head open.”

It was said quietly and calmly.

“What have you to say to that?” Colonel Dalrymple asked, addressing the soldiers, who made no reply.

“Lieutenant, take them to the guardhouse, and consider yourself under arrest till I can look into this matter. Don’t you know better than to draw your sword against a citizen in this way?”

The lieutenant made no reply, but looked savagely at Robert, as if to say, “I’ll have it out with you sometime,” sheathed his sword and turned away, following the crestfallen soldiers to the guardhouse.

Colonel Dalrymple bowed courteously, as if to apologize for the insult to the lady. Robert came to the conclusion that he was a gentleman.

The negroes were laughing and chuckling and telling the rapidly gathering crowd what had happened. Robert, having no desire to be made conspicuous, walked up Queen Street. He tarried a moment to look at the iron-grated windows and double-bolted doors of the jail, then turned down Hanover Street and made his way to the Green Dragon.